


Wear me as a seal over your heart

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Clothing, Confederate AU, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Mrs. Green's party, Romance, Slow Burn, but will there be apple charlotte?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 22:30:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16627625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: There was no escaping it-- the day had come and Mary must prepare herself.





	Wear me as a seal over your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tortoiseshells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/gifts).
  * Inspired by [wish not one man more](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16579682) by [tortoiseshells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells). 



She didn’t need a looking-glass to tell her the dress was horrid. Mary smoothed her hands over the unevenly dyed black silk; the dye hadn’t taken well, somehow, so there was an odd, muddy cast to the fabric and whatever gleam it had had when it had been the periwinkle blue of a forget-me-not had been lost in the transformation to mourning. She’d worn it to the funeral and for the next dozen Sundays that followed, sitting for long, empty afternoons with her hands folded in her lap in her empty sitting room. Aurelia would leave a cup of tea on the table beside her but Mary never drank it. She never opened the Bible that sat on the shelf and it took her months to handle the collection of sonnets Gustav had loved so to read, the words heavily accented when he was most moved, words she tasted when he kissed her. She’d put the dress away and worn her dark grey wool, the black muslin, the dove colored calico covered in ashen flowers. She hadn’t thought she’d have a reason to wear this dress again, not while the War raged and the Railroad needed her.

Mrs. Green would have her way. Young Mrs. Stringfellow could not have stopped her mother from arranging “a festivity,” no matter how much she wanted to. And Mary could not help thinking that despite Emma’s obvious anxiety about her husband and her delicate blushes about her upcoming confinement, Emma missed the novelty a party would bring, planning the menu and the flowers, the hours spent writing out place-cards and making calls to all the neighbors to gently encourage them to attend. There was Mrs. Brannan to see and Mr. Hopkins’s invalid mother to coax, probably unsuccessfully, and given the size and intimacy of the community, an invitation issued to Mr. Squivers, who’d be sure to bring the best wine-jellies he had left from his shop, and Miss Hastings, the sister of Captain Hale’s dead wife, who’d been lingering since her sister’s departure, ostensibly keeping house for her brother-in-law though it was widely known you could write your name in the dust she left on the parlor table. Oh yes, Emma would have been at least half-pleased by her mother’s plan, even if she must make the dearest little moue of disappointment at how her own dress could not disguise her expectations very well and she was forced to wear a thickly embroidered lace shawl to that same purpose.

Mary had not taken long over her toilette. There was only the black silk to shake out and her corset to be laced tighter. Given the hour, she chose the small, chased gold locket instead of a fichu, and dressed her hair in a black silk snood. She might tuck a small posy at the sash, a cluster of roses from her garden, but that was all. She knew that those closest to her would remark on her bright smile or the flowers and never mind the picture she made; those who didn’t care for her were likely to rejoice at her appearance but there were so few joys in the dark days, she could hardly find it in herself to begrudge them. She was ashamed that she wondered, as she buttoned her bodice and tied her garters, what Captain Foster would say, how harsh or gentle his mockery would be tonight. She walked down to where he waited for her, girded herself as if he were the lion in the den.

“You might spare me any comparison to mythical creatures of the depths, thunderclouds, the river Styx—I’m well aware of the aesthetic dilemma my gown presents. You may rest assured the other ladies will content your eye far better,” Mary said, choosing not to wait, to make the first strike herself. 

“I beg your pardon?” Foster replied. He’d clearly spent some time brushing his uniform and his unruly hair, polishing his buttons and boots until they gleamed. The grey butternut was not a color that suited him so well, but he managed to look undeniably handsome and she could not help sighing at discrepancies between them. The pity she’d be sure to evoke from the Greens, their guests, and from the Confederate surgeon watching her with a careful regard.

“My dress, I know it’s old and unmodish, that it looks like the very incarnation of grievous disappointment. There’s not even a bit of lace or jet on it, but you see, I couldn’t make myself alter it any further, it is so ugly,” Mary explained.

“I was thinking,” Foster began, gazing at her face so intently she lifted a hand to push back any stray curls which had escaped the snood, finding nothing but the curve of her cheek and his eyes, following her. Mary braced herself for a sardonic witticism, some biting remark about Yankees, weedy harridans who wouldn’t share the half-dozen brown eggs in the crockery bowl. “I was thinking, you look like a camellia, like a moonflower in a night garden.”

“Oh,” Mary said, feeling herself flush as she had the evening on the porch, the color in her cheeks dispelling any connection to the lovely, pale blossoms he mentioned. She was startled into any lack of pretense. “I didn’t think you would say something like that.”

“Something like what?” he asked, taking a step closer. His dark eyes were warm and his smile unexpectedly sweet.

“Something kind,” she said.

“Confound it,” he said, not harshly. “I meant to say something beautiful. Kindness has nothing to do with it. With how you look.”

“I think it does,” she said. “That you would say something so pretty, to ease my mind.”

“To tell the truth,” he said. “That’s why I said it. Because you could not look lovelier in a bright silk, hung with rubies. Though perhaps you’d prefer that better.”

“No,” Mary said slowly, giving him a little nod, resting her hand on his arm to let him lead them out towards the waiting wagon. “I think this will do very well for me. Very well indeed.”

**Author's Note:**

> I could not resist putting Mary in another terrible dress, though I imagine she dyed the blue one she had when Gustav died. This was also intended to be around 500 words and oops...The title is again from Henry V, Gustav still prefers the sonnets, and Jed is pretty smooth. All the clothing references are based on my limited knowledge of mid-19th mourning (so Google and Gone With The Wind and Little Women-- though no gloves appear in this story).


End file.
